


True Love Will Find You in the End

by nerddowell



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: All-Around Soulmates, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, I was crying about loras being parted from him last night so i'm rewarding myself with this, Idiots in Love, M/M, Platonic Soulmates, Romantic Soulmates, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, this is officially a fluffy fix-it fic for renly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:25:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14980982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: He’s the first boy in his year at school to develop a soulmark, a short while after his birthday; a hand a little smaller than his own wrapping around his upper arm. It’s a light pink against Renly’s milk-white skin, and it burns and itches in the few days after it develops, like a fresh wound.Fill for this post from otpprompts:Imagine your OTP in a soulmate AU where the signs that two people are soulmates is immediately obvious (first words spoken to one another written on skin, eyes changing color, a bonding reaction when they touch, etc.). However, both A and B are completely oblivious to the fact that they are soulmates because they’ve known each other since they were very little kids, and therefore didn’t see and/or remember a change when they first met.





	True Love Will Find You in the End

**Author's Note:**

> The excerpt from Arthurian legend is a direct quote from The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle.

‘In ancient days there lived a very noble king, named Uther-Pendragon, and he became overlord of all Britain. This king was very greatly aided unto the achievement of the Pendragonship of the realm by the help of two men, who rendered him great assistance in all that he did. The one of these men was a certain very powerful enchanter and sometime prophet known to men as Merlin the Wise, and he gave very good counsel unto Uther-Pendragon…’

His mother’s voice was soft in the quiet of the nursery as she sat her youngest son on her knee, the baby sleeping in her crib behind them, and turned the pages of the book slowly as she read to him. The tale of King Arthur and his knights of Camelot had been the boy’s favourite for years, and hardly a day passed when he didn’t come to her with a stick in his hand and proudly pronounce himself Sir Lancelot. He’d slain a dragon (or rather, hit a dead badger already lying under the farmhouse hedge with his stick ‘sword’) the day before, and the day before that, had held court at the round activity table in the nursery amongst his toys. It had long been Loras’ greatest ambition to be a knight of the realm, and he loved to hear stories of chivalrous deeds and courtly romances.

Her son traced his small fingers over the colour plate illustrations, Arthur with his golden crown atop a steel helm, Guinevere with her long hair flowing accepting a rose from the gallant Sir Lancelot, Merlin with his crooked nose buried in a spell book.  She kissed the crown of his curly head and turned the page, continuing the story, and he wriggled in her lap to settle more comfortably, thumb in his mouth and attention entirely fixated on the tale being told.

She told him all about Arthur and Guinevere, about the marks that blossomed on the king’s skin, the imprint of the lady’s fingers around his wrist and her small mouth at the base of his throat; told him about the queen’s marks, a handprint not her husband’s chaste on her shoulder. He asked his mother to see the marks she’d gained from his father, and she showed him: a fingerprint on the underside of her jaw, the first place he’d touched her. His first words to her, inked in the softest forest green along the inside of her arm.

He held out his own arms, asking when he would get his own marks, inspecting every pudgy inch of his body for clues, and she smiled.

‘One day, when you’re older. You’ll know when it happens.’

Loras Tyrell nodded, and let that be enough. The story was not yet over, and he wanted to hear the rest. He was three years of age, barely even out of babygros, and yet he already dreamed of swinging a sword, of tourneys and glory and singers telling his deeds far and wide to an adoring smallfolk. His mother never doubted for a second that what he dreamed would come to pass, in one way or another. The world needed no knights any more, but where there was a will, there was a way. And if there was one thing Loras Tyrell had in abundance, it was force of will.

* * *

At nine years old, Renly Baratheon knows better than to approach his family for anything. True, he hasn’t got much left in the way of family – older brothers, already married themselves, who see him on holidays only, and leave him at home with an aged guardian the rest of the time – but even the little he does have, he would never go to. He never knew his mother and father long enough to miss them, although he dutifully attends their graveside every few months with his brothers to lay fresh flowers. They have been beneath the earth for as long as he can remember, so he’s never really mourned them. What he does wish for is the company of children his own age, with whom he could engage in the games of which he is so fond.

Imagination, though unlimited, is a poor playmate.

His prayers are answered the summer of his tenth birthday, in the form of a small boy and his large family moving into the house down the road. Their door is painted a bright green, and the house – large, airy, and never without bunches of flowers in brightly-painted vases on the window sills – is always full of noise, the chatter of the children and the cosy sounds of family. Of the family’s four children, two are older than Renly and two younger; Willas, the eldest, is five years his senior and already nearly done with compulsory education. Garlan is closer to his own age, at thirteen. Loras, the second youngest, is two years below him at school, and Margaery, the youngest and sole daughter, would start at the local primary school in the autumn. It’s Loras whom Renly first befriends, upon seeing him playing with an elaborate doll’s house fashioned into a medieval castle on the front lawn of the Tyrells’ house.

The boy hands him a toy knight as he approaches.

‘You can be Lancelot,’ he says, his voice squeaky, and goes back to playing with his soldiers. Renly takes the toy and turns it over in his hands, taking in the bruised wood, the chipping paint, everything that tells of how well-loved the toy is. He himself has a great many toys at home, mostly guilty presents from Robert, who feels bad that he spends so little time with his youngest brother, but none so treasured as this simple doll. He manoeuvres the wooden limbs with careful fingers, and looks up to see the boy watching him with narrowed amber eyes.

‘Well? Are you playing or aren’t you?’ he asks.

‘I am.’ He nods, and listens to Loras chattering away about the Round Table and the magical sword Excalibur, the Lady of the Lake (Loras points to a Barbie at the bottom of the pond, clearly thrown in there for this exact game), and Queen Guinevere. Renly listens, saying nothing, and allows the sound of a voice not his own wash over him, his heart so full he could cry.

* * *

At twelve, Renly learns several things about himself. The first, that he is like as not going to grow to over six feet tall like his brothers, because he’s shot up four inches in the past couple of months and Cressen (‘Dad’ to Renly, if only when out of earshot of Robert and Stannis) already despairs of keeping him in school uniform that fits all year. The second, that there’s something unusual about him, although he can’t yet put his finger on what. He’s the first boy in his year at school to develop a soulmark, a short while after his birthday; a hand a little smaller than his own wrapping around his upper arm. It’s a light pink against Renly’s milk-white skin, and it burns and itches in the few days after it develops, like a fresh wound.

The other boys are fascinated, demanding to know who’s been touching Renly to leave him with such a mark. They’ve had rugby in PE lessons, where Renly has been hauled back to his feet after a clumsy tackle more than once, and he’s even been involved in a couple of fights – more as a mediator than a combatant, although the boys actually fighting in these encounters rarely take on board his conciliatory efforts – but there’s nobody who could have left the mark there.

He shows Loras when he gets home, and his friend prods at it with a small frown, intrigued.

‘I wonder who it is.’

‘I dunno,’ Renly tells him, and Loras shrugs. He’s still in his school uniform too as they sit there on the lawn, white polo shirt and green school sweater. A stray curl falls over his right eye, and Renly tucks it back behind his ear for him as Loras gesticulates wildly, enthusiastically recounting an adventure from the schoolyard. Renly listens to him chattering about his day, talking about the fight he got into with a boy who pulled Margaery’s hair and the bug he caught in his water bottle at lunch. When he’s done, he flops down onto the grass and tugs Renly down beside him to lie on his back and watch the clouds.

Renly unknots his school tie from around his neck and dumps it on the grass beside them, popping his collar. Loras settles beside him, his eyes on Renly’s face, and rests his head on his friend’s shoulder. They watch the clouds shift slowly overhead until the sky gets dark, and Renly forgets about the strange new handprint on his arm.

* * *

At sixteen, Renly has learned what the something unusual about him is, and how to hide it. There are new marks on his body, a smattering of freckles across his nose like tiny brown stars, developed during the summer when he and Loras spent every day for weeks at the beach, learning to skip stones and sharing seafront fish and chips for lunch. Both of them have tanned brown as nuts, and Loras’ hair has lightened to the colour of spun gold under the sunshine, and it’s the best summer of Renly’s life.

The day after his last school exam, he brings fish and chips again, wrapped in newspaper, as he crosses the street to Loras’ house as though he’s walking on clouds. He can barely wait to get his best friend alone in his bedroom to tell him all about the boy he’d kissed beneath the pier at the beach. He barely remembers a thing about him, in all honesty, since he’d been drunk on schnapps pilfered from Robert’s alcohol cabinet, celebrating the end of exams, his head floaty and buzzing pleasantly with the feeling of being wanted. He remembers next to nothing, except for the boy’s hand on his shoulder, resting exactly over the handprint on his arm.

He’d kissed him then, and again, and again, until they’d lain down on the shingle and Renly had pushed his hands up the boy’s shirt and down the boy’s too-tight jeans. Loras listens to the whole story with wide eyes, asking questions in all the right places and congratulating Renly on his first foray into the world of sex, but his stomach is tying itself in knots and he feels sick and he doesn’t know why.

Renly has met his soulmate. Loras, whose soulmarks also appeared over the summer – a thumbprint behind his ear, and the imprint of a slender chain around his neck – keeps quiet, so quiet that his best friend notices, even in the midst of his own elation.

‘What’s the matter?’

Loras shrugs. ‘Just wondering when mine is going to turn up.’

‘She will, one day,’ Renly reassures him, and scrubs a hand through Loras’ hair, playing with the salt-sprayed curls and offering him the last chip from the newspaper wrap.

* * *

By the time Renly is seventeen, he’s spent the best part of the last year trying to track down the boy from under the pier, convinced that the hand the boy had placed on his arm to pull Renly closer matched the print branding Renly’s skin. He’s developed no new marks that he’s aware of. His previous four birthdays had revealed one each time, starting with the handprint when he turned twelve and culminating in the freckles across his nose at sixteen, but this year his body seems to have decided that he’s been given enough clues. It doesn’t matter. He knows who it is anyway. He just has to find him again.

He’s trawling the beach yet again, Loras in tow, for anyone who reminds him of the blurry memory of that night. Loras, who has no time for soulmates and makes it clearly known whenever the subject arises, is carrying a football under one arm and walking through the surf barefoot, occasionally kicking the spray up at Renly. Renly kicks it right back, and Loras laughs, running away, because he knows he’s faster and Renly will never catch up enough to reach his tanned legs with another spray of seawater.

They stop when they reach the rock pools at the edge of the bay, and Loras climbs up onto one of the promontories to lounge in the sunlight like a cat. Beside him, Renly dons his sunglasses and pulls a book out of his rucksack, cracking the spine and settling down on his belly to read. There’s no sign of Renly’s errant under-pier lover, so for lack of anything else to do, Loras watches him. He watches the way Renly’s fingers trace the bow of his upper lip absently as his eyes scan the page, the strong golden curve of his bicep where he holds the book up, the loose strands escaping the messy bun tied at the nape of his neck blowing in the breeze off the water.

Underneath his hairline, in tiny text, are words. Loras leans closer, trying to read them, but Renly shifts and rolls his shoulders, as though aware of his snooping, and he gives up.

He rubs at the itching on his thigh, where a new soulmark had made its appearance a few days ago: two words, in a spiky, slanting script he vaguely recognises. _I am_.

He pays them no mind. They could have come from anybody, although the handwriting is familiar. God, he hopes it’s not Jaime Lannister or Sandor Clegane or any one of the other insufferable idiots at school.

* * *

Loras is attending Renly’s twentieth, by which he means joining Renly in the local pub for a pint on one of the rare weekends his friend is home from uni, when he notices it. The chain hanging around Renly’s neck, golden and delicate, with the finely-wrought rack of antlers suspended in the centre. It glimmers in the low light of the bar as Renly takes a sip of his beer, still chuckling at a joke Loras has just cracked, but his friend’s attention is glued to the fine chain nestled against his collarbone and the pendant hanging lopsidedly over his heart.

He reaches out to touch it, turns it over in his fingers, and Renly takes his hand, gently loosening his fingers from around the pendant and directing them away.

‘It was my mother’s,’ he offers by way of explanation.

Loras suddenly feels a pain, a burning, itching pain, against his chest and unbuttons his shirt – right there at the table – to check himself over. There, resting over his heart, is the perfect and indelible mark of a tiny pair of antlers. Renly, who had been about to take another gulp of his beer, stares at it, then at Loras’ face, and back to his chest. Loras knows how he feels. He’s in an equal state of shock himself.

‘What the hell is that?’ Renly asks, even though they both know full well.

Loras swallows. ‘Looks sort of like a…’

‘Like a soulmark.’

‘Yeah.’ He looks up at Renly, looking properly, and his eyes find the spread of tiny freckles over the bridge of Renly’s nose and the apples of his cheeks. The sun had brought out identical freckles across his own face, the way it did every summer, and Loras runs numb fingers over his own cheeks as Renly’s eyes widen even further.

‘You have–’

‘Yeah.’

‘And–’

‘And a thumbprint behind my ear.’ He’s struck with a sudden idea, and passes Renly a napkin from the bar, digging an old biro out of his backpack. ‘Write ‘I am’ for me.’

Renly’s hands shake as he obeys, and Loras’ heart gives a lurch as he sees the perfect match to the tattoo on his thigh upon the paper.

‘Yours says ‘You can be Lancelot’, doesn’t it?’ He points. ‘There. On the back of your neck.’

Renly nods, struck dumb.

‘ _Gods_ ,’ Loras swears, and then, ‘what a pair of idiots.’

Renly breaks into laughter, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger, and grins at him with sparkling eyes, gaze warm and tender where it rests on his friend’s face.

‘You should have known it’d be me,’ Loras tells him, smirking. ‘I _am_ utterly irresistible.’

Renly groans, and sends him off to buy the next round.

**Author's Note:**

> throw tomatoes on [my tumblr](http://translorastyrell.tumblr.com).


End file.
